Requiem for Trees

 

i like to imagine

the community of trees,

passing along the news

on autumn’s heavy breaths -

We’ve lost another good one-

as the roots of the fallen

clutch and claw

at the newfound air,

the dirt confused

in the Uprising.

an unseen Conductor raises the baton,

cueing the winds to begin their crescendo

in the sweet spaces of this Requiem.

the mourning and prayer songs begin,

branches reach, repining,

signifying to an unconcerned sky,

as the trees lean on

one another,

singing and shrieking their loss.

--Whitney Gray

Song for Autumn

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
    how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
    nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
    the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
    inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
    the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
    stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
    its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
    the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

--Mary Oliver

The Cloud

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley (final stanza)

[Photo taken of clouds over the Sequatchie Valley].